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Avondale, AZ Car Consumer Discussions

Drive on!

by iluvmysephia1 on Fri Sep 26 12:43:52 PDT 2008

cdnpinhead, I just noticed you're another one of us Arizona Edmunds members. I'm heading up there towards your area from Willcox on Monday, to get my '08 Lancer GTS detailed with an 'Auto Butler' paint protectant treatment. I get it every 6 months from the dealer I bought the Lancer from, Avondale Mitsubishi in Avondale, AZ. But what I wanted to comment on was your statement on driving and how much you like it. Drive on, because driving is not illegal, there's an oil company around that wants your ghastly dollar and a service station that wants your ghastly dollar, too. But driving is fun and a form of entertainment for a lot of us automotive enthusiasts. And whether we drive a rig with an ICE, hybrid, or all-electric, I believe it is important to be able to feel free to do just that. Drive our rigs with glee...I love driving around Arizona and New Mexico seeing new places and learning about the people of that land. Around here are the Chiricahua National Monument(the "land of standing rocks" the native Indians called them) with their enchanting rock spire formations, that are truly fascinating to see. Only about 37 miles south of Willcox, too. There is Fort Bowie, where Geronimo was held by the U.S. Army, after finally catching the great Apache warrior, back in 1886. Fort Bowie's ruins are available for viewing and they are only 25 miles SE of my home. More interesting rock formations are found in Texas Canyon with the Dragoon Mountain range and their rocks resting on top of other rocks and abnormalities are great to visit. I-10 actually runs right between the formations. Cochise Stronghold is about 45 miles west of me here in Willcox, and that is the proud Chief Cochise's old hiding place from the Cavalry and anyone else he didn't want to find him. We drove up to see a Foghat concert in October of '07 near Wickenburg, AZ, about 60 miles or so NW of Phoenix. The next day we left our motel and drove up to the Grand Canyon. I have never seen anything like that place and heartily await our next visit. When my son ran up to the edge on the SE area of the South Rim, he just stopped in his tracks and stared in amazement. "Dad, you're not gonna believe this!" He's right, I couldn't believe the beauty I was staring at. Incredible, awe-inspiring natural beauty that just went on and on. Point is, fact is, this country has benefited greatly from the automobile and it's availability to people. It's given us freedom and mobility that can't be rivalled by the horses and the carriages. Agreed? If we still have a rig with a ICE, and most of us do, I am for driving as much as we can afford to drive and for as long and far as we want. Restricting that idea is bad for business, bad for the economy and bad for our emotional health collectively. But it's an individual thing that varies according to the person, agreed. The environmentalists will never be satisfied, whatever propels our automobiles. You realize that, don't y'all? And if you love a manual-trannied rig way more than an automatic-trannied rig, ya know what, you've got that right. Once again, it's an individual thing. I think that with the advent of hybrid and all-electric propulsion technology you're gonna have to be ready to abandon your stickshift vehicle, however. Reading up on the subject points me to things like automatic push-button starts for new world order rigs like this. And after starting the rigs, I am reading of the implementation of simple levers for putting the power to the wheels, like "forward" and "reverse" buttons. Does that doom the manual tranny? I don't think so. Especially if you've got some awesome backyard mechanical skills, gentlemen. I am starting to see the end of the manual transmission. But that's just my view, my car-nut buddies. Think I'll go exploring in the Lancer GTS. And I'll feel good about doing just that, too. :shades:

Get the Mitsubishi...

by iluvmysephia1 on Sun Jun 15 13:43:33 PDT 2008

better SUV than the Nissan Murano. I have a 2008 Mitsubishi Lancer GTS with the Rockford Fosgate 6 CD/AM/FM/Sirius stereo and mine has 9 speakers. But it is loud and hot and heavy. I pop some Foghat Live II in there and crank it up and I have a big 'ole rockin' time! BTW, where in Mexico are you at? I live in Willcox, AZ, about 75 miles north of the USA-Mexico border. I bought my Lancer GTS up in Avondale, a Phoenix burb. But I get my Lancer serviced at Ideal Mitsubishi, which is in Sierra Vista, AZ. That city is only about 10 miles north of the USA-Mexico border. Where ya at?

Wow, nippon...

by iluvmysephia1 on Sun Jun 15 12:33:37 PDT 2008

Toyota is seeing the light. raychuang...Mitsubishi is already all over those two types like white on rice. My 2008 Mitsubishi Lancer GTS has a 2.0L 152 hp motor and a CVT transmission. The "shifts" are as smooth as a baby's a@#. No kidding. Smooth as a freshly shaven face. I have power-shifted with it, of course. It doesn't hurt that Mitsu built my '08 Lancer GTS to be a baby EVO, with improved front suspension assemblies and Dunlop performance tires. What a great car. And nippononly, I know you won't believe this, but I know I used to preach the "5-speed or 6-speed manual" all of the time. There is life after manual transmissions! This baby shifts and handles like a dream. I mean, even with my 2.0L 4 cylinder producing 152 horses and 146 pounds/ft. torque, I could really tick people off riding with me powering in to the turns. Of course, I've already done just that. My wife reacts quickly and decisively whenever I do that type of thing. The fun ends fast! This car will track and turn on a dime and downshifting or upshifting is done with a quick flick and the engine and CVT don't waste a speck of time. I mean, it's like right there, in your face...DONE! And then you punch it and move out. I gotta admit, when I entered my Mitsu dealer in Avondale, west of Phoenix, they didn't have a Rally Red '08 Mitsubishi Lancer GTS with a 5-speed manual tranny in stock. They had one with a CVT tranny! I spat out in anger at a few of them in the front of the store. Why did they tell me over the phone that they had a 5-speed then? Yikes, it must be hard to get competent help these days. But then, after talking about it with my wife, and thinking it out loud, we decided we did want the automatic CVT. I had to dispense a cold Pepsi, cool off, and then test drive the car first. Yes, it was tensioning to watch them drive it out of the showroom. Man, talk about tight car-to-door tolerances there! All of this in my excitement to say to you that I love the car and the automatic CVT with 6 forward and "reverse" speeds to paddle shift and it's a hoot to drive! I think that manual or CVT both would work for me. And in the future, with electrics/hybrids, etc., I see CVT's and DSG's fillin' up our sales lots. The transition can be made, it can be done, and a lot of people are switching over.

Well, that's not right...

by iluvmysephia1 on Sun May 04 15:34:52 PDT 2008

they wouldn't wash your car because detail was closed? Eeek! Yeah, Ideal Mitsubishi is really pretty good. We had to wait a long time last time in but I mentioned all the things that were done. We were enjoying shopping and browsing so it was cool. I didn't even buy my Lancer GTS from them! I went to west Phoenix(Avondale, AZ)to buy mine! They still treat us right! I know where I'll buy our next Mitsubishi from! :D I am watching the development of Mitsubishi's electric car the i-MIEV. Even though I won't be buying anything new for years and years, I think electric might be a sound way to go for propulsion after all the dino gas and oil is used up, or gets too costly to keep spending money on.

tiff c...

by iluvmysephia1 on Wed Apr 16 22:57:47 PDT 2008

that's true. When I started looking at the 2008 Mitsubishi Lancer I was gonna buy a stick. I phoned ahead and found a dealer west of Phoenix that had the exact Lancer GTS in the exact color and they would give me the 4.9% financing that two other Phoenix dealerships already agreed to offer. Good-great, just needed to drive the 209 miles NW to Avondale, a western Phoenix suburb, and test drive this beautiful new Mitsubishi. When we got there they showed me the Rally Red Lancer, but, to my surprise, it was an automatic CVT Lancer GTS! I got all upset and told them that they should be more careful when talking to people over the phone about what their own cars had as features, blah-blah-blah. At the same time I was so stoked to test drive this gorgeous car that I just decided that it would work for us as an automatic, my wife and son don't drive stick, etc. I was gonna be the primary driver of the car, anyway, but we decided to get it, even though I drove up there thinking 5-speed tranny all the way! It has worked out very well for us so far. I would not rule out going back to a stick in the future, but, this CVT has some advantages to it and has worked out very well for us.

Hey how cool to read new reports on

by iluvmysephia1 on Tue Mar 18 12:32:28 PDT 2008

people interested in the 2008 Mitsubishi Lancer! I love my '08 Lancer GTS more every passing day. Yesterday my son and I drove up to Avondale Mitsubishi(209 miles to our NW) to get our Lancer's Auto Butler treatment applied. Wow...the car looks like showroom condition again! They washed it inside and out(windows real well, I have two Pomeranians, one looks like a coyote and he slobbers on the inside of my Lancer's windows constantly!!), vacuumed the interior and got all of the bug guts off of the outside of the car. Then they applied the Auto Butler treatment. Whoa, I can't believe it...I run my fingers over the car's body and it's smooth as silk! I told the service guy "Aren't you going to charge me the $9.95 for the car's cleaning beforehand?" He replied..."Umm, no, you're good. You may get a survey, I'll be expecting all 10's on it!" "You will be getting 10's", I told him. I averaged 35 mpg yesterday, most of the miles on the I-10 freeway in middle-southern Arizona. Nice ride, to say the least! ;)